Out of the Shadows -

[spriso]

I got a call the other day from a lady looking to sell her late husband's 1966 Datsun 1600 Roadster-- "...would you be interested in something like this?" she asked... the car had been parked in 1992, and had not been out of the garage since... of course, I said Yes and arrangements were made to see the car the next day.

After work, I headed over to a small, dark garage, she handed me the keys, and told me to take a look... As the door creaked open, I wondered what might be waiting for me. With some reluctance, the garage door opened, and there sitting on four flat tires was this:

Dirty, dusty, but remarkably complete, I looked deeper... (hmmm. 67.5 badging on the tail light panel, but no crash evidence... what people do!)

"Tell me your secrets" I thought-- wondering the who, what, where, when, why it was parked. Floors were solid, a repaint, but the body holes remained, but alas, no pile of trim in the corners of the garage. The interior was musty, with evidence of mice, and spiders, but the dashboard only showed one small crack on the underside of the corner...

Under the hood showed a light tap in the nose at one point in it's life, and more of the required mouse turds, a little grungy, and tired, but was otherwise complete:

Yep, this one is coming home-- and after some negotiating, a number was settled that we were both happy with... she was coming home!

[spriso]

.

[spriso]

First Clean

This car is dirty-- and will need a scrub, many of them in fact, but I did have a little time for a quick wash to knock the big chunks off over the weekend:


As I have time, I will continue to keep cleaning this up and getting the original trim back onto it, and then I will see about seeing what it will take to get the R16 running again. This is a very long-term project-- lots of customer projects to work on in the meantime, but so fun to find such a time capsule!

Michael

[AC77]

Very cool. Great find, I'm excited to see the new chapter in it's life

[pebbles]

Neat car!

[beebo]

That shop.... I WANT!!

Nice roadster too!

Cheers,
Wade

[S Allen]

Nice score!

S

[2mAn]

Are those covers for the headlights that have yellowed, or was he doing a french look or something?

[spriso]

.

[2mAn]

Not sure about the headlight covers-- next time I'm up at the shop, I will get them pulled and see what that was all about. It appears that there are some sort of aftermarket H4 headlights behind them-- maybe previous owner was just trying to protect his investment-- either way, they will be off of the car soon!



Michael

PM me when you get them off, Ive been looking for some H4 7" lights and may be interested

[dynaguy]

Nice find. Sweet shop Eric....go big or go home!!! Pat

[greydog]

Any thoughts about where Spriso will take this one Michael?
Dan

[spriso]

I'm anticipating that this one will get our full treatment... not for awhile though, lots of customer projects ahead of it...

[notoptoy]

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